Filemon Vela quits Hispanic caucus over border surge

Frustration over the so-called “border surge” proposal in the Senate immigration bill has pushed at least one Democratic member of Congress too far.

Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) has resigned from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in an apparent protest over the coalition’s tacit embrace of the Senate’s immigration bill, which includes an unprecedented increase in security measures, including about 20,000 in new agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.

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In an e-mail, Vela – a freshman Democrat whose district partly borders Mexico — said he took issue with provisions in the Senate bill that tied a pathway to citizenship to the boost in border security measures, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The caucus did not take an official position on the border surge proposal. But in a statement after the Senate passed its comprehensive legislation last week, CHC Chairman Ruben Hinojosa praised the chamber for the bill that “is in line with the CHC’s Principles on Immigration Reform.”

A CHC spokesman on Tuesday had no official comment on Vela’s resignation, which was tendered over the weekend.

Vela’s resignation follows protests from a handful of immigration groups after the release of the border surge amendment, drafted by Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota.

Although many pro-reform organizations were reluctantly on board with the Corker-Hoeven plan, a coalition of border groups — including the Border Network for Human Rights, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights and the Northern Borders Coalition – and Presente.org, a Latino advocacy group, urged senators to vote down the amendment.